Yay for Upholstery!

And, YIPPEE for finishing!

I had these two slipper chairs that I was going to get rid of when we got our cool new recliners from West Elm.  But, I decided to reupholster them and keep them in the living room (it's a long story involving Chester Field).

I had these two chairs professionally recovered when I was in my light blue glam phase.  I thought they did a terrible job and was never very happy with them.

Without further ado.  This is the after photo.

When I bought them, during my jewel tone phase in the early 90's, they were pretty expensive.  I remember paying $700 a piece for them and was very excited about furnishing my huge living room that had been empty for a few years since we bought the house new.

I thought it was going to be a quick deconstruction because, after all, I had had them professionally reupholstered.  I figured that when that was done, they had stripped them to the bones.

That was so not the case.  I was very frustrated to find that they hadn't even stripped off the old fabric.  They had just put padding over it so it wouldn't show through.  Lazy swine.

So, it took twice as long as it should have, but I still got both of them stripped down in just a couple of days.

I chose a neutral siege because I have a lot of other colors going on and still plan to have a teal colored couch some day.

For this task I broke out Ye Ol' Singer instead of Cheapo Brother.  She makes a much more even stitch.

I decided I wanted a puffy, squishy, down-filled cushion, so I made this casing with three pockets.  Top and bottom are narrow pockets for the down and the foam cushion goes in the middle.

I did this task outside because goose down was a flyin'.

Then I looked at this and thought, "this foam goes into that case?"

With much effort and sweat, I managed to get it in there, then stitch up the ends.

Too much?  LOL

By the way, when I made the cushion cover and it was time to get that behemoth into it, I wrapped it in a plastic bag and sealed the opening around the vacuum cleaner hose.  When I turned the vacuum on, it sucked all the air out, making the cushion flat.  It easily slipped into the cover.  When I got it all situated, I turned off the vacuum, cut the plastic bag off and pulled it off of the cushion and out of the cushion cover in pieces.  It was so easy, I couldn't believe it!

And, surprise!  I couldn't just make it all beige.  I saw this fabric at Hobby Lobby and loved it immediately.  I had to find a way to incorporate it onto my piece.

I made several mistakes on this project and have one more chair to do.  Now my dilemma is, should I fix the mistakes and risk the chairs looking a bit different, or should I make the same mistakes so that they'll look the same?  Hmm.  Also.  Still trying to decide if I should paint those legs or leave them nude.

The End.

And the Cherry Tomatoes Keep On a Comin'

I thought I'd try another way to use the cherry tomatoes...pizza sauce.  I scoured Pinterest for the perfect recipe.  I mean, how do you make pizza sauce pizza sauce?  It basically has the same ingredients that spaghetti sauce and lasagna sauce do.  Tomatoes, oregano, basil, thyme, garlic, onion.

No recipe really struck me as outstanding.  I looked at the ingredients on the jar of pizza sauce that I have in my refrigerator (which always gets moldy because I don't use it up fast enough), but it only says "spices".  So, I kind of made up my own by using the ingredients in two or three other recipes that I saw.

I grow oregano, basil, and thyme in my herb garden and wanted to use all fresh herbs, so I didn't follow any particular measurements.  I just used a lot of each.  Who knows if this will be any good.  It might just taste like spaghetti on crust.  But, I don't have anything to lose and it will get the tomatoes off of my kitchen counter.

I chopped up an onion and about four garlic cloves and sautéed them in olive oil until soft.

Then I added the tomatoes.  There are a couple of Roma tomatoes thrown in there.  Just because.

A handful each of fresh basil, oregano, and thyme.  Of course, I stripped the leaves off the stems.

Photo op.  Ain't that purty?

After letting it simmer for about an hour, I tossed it in my amazing Breville and processed it until smooth.  Pizza sauce is supposed to be a brighter red than that and maybe a little thicker.  Some of the recipes that I read said to add tomato paste, but I wanted this to be all fresh produce, so I didn't do it.

When I make pizza, I only use about three tablespoons of sauce, so I decided to package my sauce in individual packets.  Looks like spaghetti sauce popsicles. 

I sealed them up with my food saver.  Hint:  When using the food saver for liquid or really wet things,  fill the bag, then freeze, then seal.  Otherwise, the liquid will be sucked out into the appliance and it won't seal.

So, I have about a years worth of pizza sauce.  

We'll see how it tastes the next time I get a hankering for pizza.

Cherry Tomatoes Galore

I don't really know why, but I always plant one cherry tomato in my garden and have way more than I could ever use.  I accidentally bought two cherry tomato plants this year, so I am absolutely overrun with them.

This is harvest from two days.  I have too pick, at the very least, every other day, or they will start to go bad on the vine.

In the past years, I've just throw them out and it's such a waste, but since I discovered a couple of years ago that dehydrated tomatoes are so stinkin' delicious and useful, I decided I'd try to dehydrate the cherry tomatoes, too.  I wasn't disappointed, they are very good, if not a pain to cut up and dehydrate.  I mean, each tomato had to be cut into thin slices, about 1/4 of an inch thick.  So, that means each tiny tomato made about three to four slices.  Tedious, to say the least.

I was lamenting this to Husband and he suggested that I use my food processor.  I'll admit, that had crossed my mind, but I was picture a mushy mess.  After a few days of slicing each tomato individually, I decided to give it a try.  And, it worked wonderfully.  My Breville has a blade that can be adjusted for thickness.  So I packed up the chute with the tomatoes and whirled away.

At first, I thought it did turn them to mush.  But, when I opened it up, I found that there were just hundreds of perfectly sliced little disks.

All I had to do was take them out and place them on the dehydrator.

It's not fun (there isn't much about preserving food that is fun), but I'll be enjoying these little bits of deliciousness for the coming year, so I guess it's worth it.